


Saponification

by skoosiepants



Series: Supersaturation [8]
Category: All American Rejects, Bandom, Cobra Starship, Disney RPF, Fall Out Boy, Gym Class Heroes, Jonas Brothers, My Chemical Romance, Panic At The Disco, Stargate Atlantis, The Academy Is..., The Cab, The Hush Sound
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Crossover, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-03-27
Updated: 2009-03-27
Packaged: 2017-10-06 20:17:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/57378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skoosiepants/pseuds/skoosiepants
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I don't usually follow gossip," Brendon says, which is a blatant, bald lie, "but word is Crawford's got an imaginary friend."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Saponification

**Author's Note:**

> Much awesome thanks to insunshine for the kick-ass beta-job. I totally don't have favorites, but this is for druidspell (my best 'verse supporter), nunshavingfun (I fixed Joe for you!!!), and starflowers (whose mere existence makes me smile).

**[i]**

"This is so cool," Gerard says.

The sky is an amazingly bright, crystal blue; birds are singing, trading off lengthy chirrups in the heavily-laden fruit trees above Joe's head. There's a buzz and hum of bees and late summer cicadas in the tall grass, a mess of red, orange and yellow flowers. The scent of something honeysuckle-sweet is thick in the air, and Joe's almost afraid to touch the blossoms on a nearby bush, afraid to risk feeling the creamy yellow petals fall apart in his hands. A breeze ruffles his hair. He wants to lie down in the middle of the meadow and watch the puffy little cumulous clouds float by. He wants to fall asleep with the sun warming his face, his throat. This is the most amazing place Joe's ever been in.

And then everything goes black.

"Hey," Joe yells, and Gerard says, "Sorry, sorry, my fault," and when the world blinks back on, he's gazing at Joe sheepishly.

He holds up his hands over the console by the doorway, palms spread. "Sorry. But, like, seriously, how _cool_ is this, right?"

"You guys done yet?" Crawford asks, curly-topped head ducking around the doorjamb.

Marshall's head follows, just above Crawford's. "Yeah, are you? 'Cause, um, the elders mentioned ruins, guys, _ruins_."

"Ruins," Joe says, tipping his head to the side. Ruins versus a totally rocking greenhouse that, like, seems to be wholly _holographic_. "Ruins or eerily earth-like indigenous plants I can study," and also, _also_ take a nap in, seriously. He stares at Crawford.

Gerard just waves his hands around a little, expression distressed, and looks like maybe he's a step away from protectively gripping the room's control console.

Crawford sighs. "Fuck it, I'll stay." He pushes Marshall's head back and shouts out the door, "Colligan! You've got Marshall-watch. Try not to let him fall down any wells."

Joe can just barely hear Colligan's reply - "What if I push him?" - and Marshall's indignant squawk.

Johnson pops up from behind a berry bush. "I think we've got rodents," he says, smiling a little.

Joe shoots him a thumbs-up. "Awesome."

The room flickers dark again, and Gerard says, "Wasn't me!" just before the clap of thunder, the flash of lightning across the sky, a fast moving rainstorm sweeping away the sunshine in seconds.

The temperature drops and Joe shivers. "Holy crap," he says. He can _feel_ the cool drops of rain. "How is this even possible?"

Gerard is grinning from ear to ear.

"Um, guys?" Crawford has his head tipped back, scratching at his right eyebrow. "What's all that?"

"What's all what?" Joe asks, glancing around. It's twilight dim, gray, stems of the blue, lily-like flower-bells drooping from the steady rain. And then he sees shadows dancing along where the walls should be - the sky rolls out forever, despite the roughly fifty-by-fifty dimension of the room. "Huh."

Gerard hums a little and says, "Hang on." A minute later, the sky starts to lighten again, and the rain slows down to a mild drizzle.

The shadows are still there. They're kind of creepy, actually.

"Do you get the feeling they're smiling at us?" Crawford says.

As the room gets lighter, the shadows grow darker. Joe can almost make out a hand, a five-fingered wave.

"Ow, _damn it_," Gerard says.

Joe jerks his gaze towards him, and Gerard's shaking out his hand, frowning down at the console. There's another fucking shadow on the wall behind his head. Joe feels his eyes grow huge.

"Um, Gee?"

Gerard goes back to tapping the console. "Yeah?" he says absently.

The shadow looks like it's poking Gerard's shoulder, even though it doesn't seem like Gerard can feel it.

Johnson sidles up next to Joe and says, "Weird."

Crawford starts inching cautiously towards Gerard, P-90 angled up.

Gerard looks over at him, nose wrinkled. "What? What are you doing?"

"So why don't we go take a gander at those ruins, huh?" Crawford says. He jerks his head at the door.

Joe purses his lips. "Awesome idea."

Johnson says, "Let's go."

*

Gerard had let Crawford steer him from the _tremendously awesome_ fake meadow room, even though he'd really, really wanted to take that console apart and see how it ticked. And maybe the panel by the door. And that little square box by the fruit orchard, the one with the squiggly lines all over.

"I don't think it's Ancient," he says, looking over the data he'd downloaded onto his handheld. He's curled up on the bench in the back of the 'jumper they'd taken in with Crawford's team. "I mean, definitely no ZPM, and if the Ancients had that kind of, of, _imagination_, I'm pretty sure we would've found it on Atlantis."

Joe says, "Look at this," and holds up two tiny blue flowers.

Gerard hovers a hand over them. "They're _real_," he says, half-reverential. He still doesn't get how that's possible. They even smell real, a hint of sweet over cut grass.

"Yeah, dude, too bad about the creepy shadow people," Joe says, shrugging.

"Huh?" Gerard narrows his eyes at the flowers. There's a whisper-soft buzz in his ear, and he bats a hand at it absently. They must've brought one of the bugs with them or something. Cool. You know. As long as it's not iratus-related, and doesn't want to eat them.

"Here," Joe says, holding out one of the flowers. "Keep it, dude, I don't need both of them."

Gerard beams at him. "Awesome."

*

**[ii]**

The weird thing is that Mike's team has shitty luck, but they're not the _worst_ 'gate team on Atlantis. As far as actual accidents and incidents go, Lieutenant Smith's team has got it all over them. So he doesn't get why everyone always blames them for everything that goes wrong.

"It's because we're always getting other people hurt, man," Travis says, leaning back on his palms, idly chewing on a toothpick.

Travis is suave and charming. Mike thinks this is maybe the only reason they seem to excel at diplomatic trips - they get points for hardly ever getting thrown into off-world prisons, even if they're constantly breaking guest scientists by, like, basically not paying enough fucking attention. At least, that's what Captain Gabe always says.

Asher raises her tin cup in mock salute, grinning. "I asked for a transfer last month. I got a 'tough shit' from Captain Gabe and the colonel just laughed at me," she says, and Nick chucks a hard roll at her head.

"Ow, son of a goat fucker," Asher practically yelps. She twists sideways and kicks him in the shin with unsurprising flexibility - Mike's learned never to be surprised by anything about Asher, not since that whole unicorn incident on PX5-200.

"Children, play nice," Travis says mildly over Nick's, "What the fuck are you packing in your fucking boots, Jesus Christ, I think you broke me, slutface."

Asher just snickers, dodging out of the way of Nick's fist as he lunges for her.

Nick grins evilly and says, "I hope you get gonorrhea and die."

"Eat shit, puppet fucker," Asher says, and there's a disturbing gleam in her eyes, a challenge. All she's missing is the boxer's stance, the come-and-get-me hand gestures.

Mike sighs and rubs a hand over his forehead. Nick and Asher are kind of always like that. They don't actually hate each other; they just seem to enjoy coming up with new and inventively crude insults. It's like some sort of demented off-world game, only they do it everywhere else, too.

"Who wants lollypops?" Travis says. He tugs three Dumdums out of his pack and tosses one to Mike.

Asher and Nick instantly quiet.

"I've got cherry and lemon." Travis waggles them in the air, and Nick makes grabby hands.

"Dude, cherry," he says, scrambling for it before dropping down onto the ground again.

Asher smacks the back of his head as she passes by. "You're lucky I like lemon."

Nick tilts his head back and makes kissy faces at her, and they all settle back down around the fire, sucking on candy, and then something strikes Mike as being off. He absently crunches into the Dumdum, clamping his teeth around the stick.

Something is _way_ off, like epically, they're-in-deep-shit off, and this is exactly what Captain Gabe had been talking about. "Fuck," Mike says. He tosses his lollypop stick into the fire. "Fuck, has anyone seen Joe?"

*

The natives of M30-255 are, for lack of a better adjective, pleasant. They give them vacant smiles as they stalk into the village; they're complacent, even though Vicky's got her P-90 propped up and cocked. She presses her lips together and keeps one eye on Kennerty, watching for any signals. She wouldn't mind taking a few assholes down, even if they don't know for sure yet what happened with Joe. This entire world is creepy; like everyone got zapped in the head - grinning like fools even when they've got the shittiest jobs.

Small, well-kept houses line the main road. From previous visits, Vicky knows they're not even advanced enough to have running water inside them, but the trims and faces are all gingerbread white and brown, neatly identical, all except the temple at one end and the chief's house on the other.

Nick leans in towards her a little and says around the end of his Dumdum, "Creepy as shit out here."

"Same old, same old," Vicky says. She jabs him with her elbow. "Pay attention, fucktard."

Nick tips his hat back with his thumb. "Has Lacey given you crabs yet?"

"I really wish I could pistol whip you right now," Vicky says, mouth twitching. "You're a real class act, fucking felt-humper."

"Ever notice your names for me have a lot to do with fucking?" Nick waggles his eyebrows at her.

"You ever notice how I never bring up your pathetic pansy-ass crush on Dr. Ritter, Wheeler? I'm nice like that."

"Shut your hooker mouth, Asher."

"I'd call you a girl," Vicky says, "but that'd be an insult to the entire superior half of the human race."

Kennerty clears his throat pointedly. Vicky rolls her eyes. Kennerty's got a killer smile, but he's not very intimidating. She kind of feels like half their problem as a team is that they don't take Kennerty as seriously as they should. Maybe if they get out of here with Joe alive she'll start to remedy that; give him his due as their fearless leader.

If they don't get out of there with Joe alive, Bryar'll kill all of them anyway and it'll be moot point.

An old, gray-haired man meets them at the bottom steps of the temple. He isn't the chief, Vicky knows that, but he's a revered elder, and someone Vicky had previously kind of liked. He has clear, honest blue eyes, but his face is creased with worry now.

"My friends," Chaln greets them. He stretches a gnarled hand towards Kennerty. "My friends," he says again, "I am afraid for you."

*

Joe is good at a select few things. He's a kick-ass botanist, yeah; he can identify and classify like nobody's business. He can piss Bob off. That's a big one: Bob's a quiet dude, but he's got a heated temper when riled. And he can blow shit up; even if most of the time it's accidental. Given that, he's not so sure why Colonel Sheppard ever lets him go off-world.

Right now, though, Joe's pretty sure he's going to die. There's only so much pain a body can handle, he thinks, before it just gives up. His inner-Bob is telling him to man up and take it, but Joe'd started ignoring his inner-Bob right around the time they snapped his wrist.

It's almost a relief when they toss him back into his cell - he doesn't know how long he's been there, or where the rest of Kennerty's team is. The small square room doesn't have any windows and it smells like shit and Joe can taste blood in his mouth. He curls up in a corner, cradling his hand to his chest, and he thinks: _I'm not made for this, this isn't happening, where the_ fuck _is Bob? _

He maybe cries a little. He'll deny it later, but Jesus fuck, he's exhausted.

He tries to remember what world they're even on, but he can't think of the freaking address. Somewhere they've actually been to before, somewhere with those flowers that look like calla lilies, only bright blue and spicy. The natives use them ground up into pasteas an anesthetic. That's the only fucking reason Joe had even been with Kennerty's team in the first place.

He presses his cheek into the grit of the wall and shudders. The cool stone feels almost nice against his skin.

The last thingthe last thing he can remember clearly, actually, is going to take a piss. It hadn't even been fully _dark_ yet, and Wheeler had waved him off, and fuck, fuck. _Fuck_, his wrist hurts like a motherfucker. It's pretty much the only thing keeping him alert.

His brain is fuzzy, though - or maybe that's just his eyes, unfocused with pain - so he doesn't notice when the door opens again, but one second he's alone and the next he's got someone kneeling in front of him, hands on his arms, and it's kind of just a dark shape, half looming over him. He recognizes Travis' voice, though, on, "_Shit_, Joe, are youwhat the fuck, man."

Joe laughs, a low rasping sound that burns his dry throat, even though it isn't fucking funny at all.

*

Travis has two gifts. First, he's one smooth motherfucker. It only takes a well-timed smile and wink to get them to open up about Joe; maybe he adds in a small bob of his head, a sly I'm-with-you-man look. It's all so natural he doesn't exactly have to think about it.

Secondly, Travis is a big guy. He has no qualms about beating the piss out of some shit-for-brains native. He's a linguist, he's an anthropologist, but he's not Daniel fucking Jackson. He doesn't give a fuck about any villagers or their ass-backwards cultures, not if their culture does _this_.

Across the table from him, Petram, a youngish guy with a close-trimmed beard and dark eyes brimming with rich superiority, steeples his fingers and watches Travis over the tips. "He was trespassing on sacred grounds. His suffering is his amends to the gods."

Travis would bet his left nut that Petram doesn't give a fuck about his gods. His people do, maybe, Travis has seen their faith before, plain on their faces, but there's nothing of a supplicant in Petram, full of greed, like _he's_ the god; his people look to him, a leader divinely chosen. What-the-fuck-ever. Travis understands the dynamic of this settlement better than he'd like; this is their fifth visit to this world.

Now, Travis is using his I'm-harmless stance - slouching in his chair, hands open and relaxed on the armrests - because he figures that way he can take this motherfucking robed asshole by surprise. There's a deep burn of anger coiling low in his stomach.

Travis likes Joe. Joe's a good guy, and Joe's been a prisoner for _two days_, and Joe'sJoe's sort of unrecognizable. That isn't suffering. Screw their _suffering_, that's fucking torture.

Vicky's taking her cue from him - they've done this before; the more relaxed Travis becomes, the tighter Vicky winds up, ready for anything, face set. Travis likes that she trusts him enough for that - _he's_ the rookie. He's never had military training - he went to Berkeley, for Christ's sake - but he knows what he's doing here.

He blames television. With good cop, bad cop, the ones who smile sweetly are the ones you have to watch out for. Good thing the Pegasus Galaxy doesn't get reruns of Law and Order.

Travis says, "Maybe we can work out a deal."

Petram's eyes flick to Vicky and back, and Travis almost gives in to the urge to roll his eyes.

"Not her," he says.

Vicky grins, sharp. Travis knows what she's thinking - she'd slice him to ribbons before he could even lay a hand on her - but that's not what they need. They need to get Joe out of here, and killing Petram would only result in a hot mess of trouble, one that they'd be hard pressed to talk themselves out of unscathed.

"We shall see," Petram says, then beckons a boy forward, smiling benignly. "Karsa can show you to your rooms. You will, of course, be staying in my home until we can come to an accord. I'm certain you will be more than comfortable."

"Sure," Travis says, shrugging a little.

Vicky bares her teeth. Vicky, Travis thinks, is one of his favorite people.

*

"Fucking Kennerty," Bob says, hands fisted at his sides.

Wheeler blanches and looks like he wants to take a few steps back. He doesn't. Bob would be impressed if he wasn't filled with burning rage.

Bob barely refrains from reaching out and curling a hand into Wheeler's tac vest. Instead, he says, "You let them take Joe," and watches Wheeler's adam's apple do a slow slide up and down his throat.

"Um, technically we didn't _let_ them"

"You let them take my fucking _scientist_," Bob says. Bob knows the rules. Scientists are never left alone, and fucking Kennerty lost _Joe_.

"Travis knows what he's doing," Kennerty says, calm, like he isn't totally fucking incompetent. "I've got complete faith."

Bob wants to shove Kennerty's faith down his fucking throat.

Frank is bouncing up and down on his toes beside him, like some kind of coked-up monkey. "Bob, Bob, it'll be fine," he says. He squeezes Bob's arm.

Bob wants to punch him. It's Frank, though, so Bob kind of always wants to punch him.

Beneath all his rage, Bob recognizes that he's panicking. Kennerty has a reputation, yeah, but Bob knows it's just as likely that Joe got himself into this. Joe can be a disaster, a fucking mess - he tends to talk too much or blow shit up when he's nervous. Kennerty might've fucking lost track of Joe - and Bob isn't going to let him ever forget that - but there's a good chance Joe would've been perfectly fine ifif he wasn't _Joe_.

Bob knows that Frank would be a complete wreck if he ever had to go off-world with Gerard, but Bob _likes_ that he's on a team with Joehe likes being able to keep an eye on him. He feels fucking helpless and not a little guilty, like maybe he should have volunteered to go along with Kennerty's team, too.

He might have, if things weren't so weird between them. That's another fucking thing to feel guilty over. His life had been a lot easier when he and Joe had just been fucking, Christ.

Toro's fastening on his tac vest as he walks into the 'gate room, hair held back by a camo bandana. "We ready?" he asks, then looks up and catches Bob's eye. "Okay?"

Bob clenches his jaw and nods.

*

William does not like little Private Novarro. In fact, he dislikes him _greatly_. "I dislike him greatly," William tells Greta. He doesn't like that Novarro has been sniffing around his favorite lady friend.

"He's adorable," Greta says. She shrugs. "And I think he's sweet."

William frowns and leans back in the commissary chair, folding his arms over his chest. "He's trying to woo you."

Greta winks at him. "I know."

"He's trying to woo you with erroneous information about the heavens. He knows that you're an engineer, not an astrophysicist, right?"

"I like stars." Greta's smile turns disgustingly dreamy.

William is horrified.

He's saved from further poetic waxing - about _stars_, which you can't even touch, not like the bright blue colony of crystals set in the most curiously porous rock William had given his very own Captain Gabe just days before - by little Brendon Urie.

He's got his big eyes on, so William thinks either he's done something that Smith is going to yell extensively at him about, oractually, he can't think of an or.

"Joe's missing!" Brendon says. He pulls out the chair next to Greta and then scoots in as close to her as possible, elbows up on the table.

"Joe's missing?" Greta echoes.

Brendon nods. "I feel so bad for Bob, guys, it's tragic."

It is indeed tragic, William thinks. Robert and Joe have only just recently been reconciled due to the wily influences of himself and Greta. Tentatively reconciled, but negotiations have been going on, he knows this. "Do we know what's being done about this?"

"Bob's going to get him back," Brendon says confidently. "And Major Ray and Captain Gabe and that rat bastard Lacey"

William nods his head in silent approval; everyone should be so conscientious of Lacey's blatant douchebag-ery.

"and I think they're taking Lewis, too."

Lewis is a good choice, William thinks. Lewis is sweet-faced and deceptively soft-hearted. She'll shank you if she needs to, and do it with a smile. William admires that quality in a woman.

"Well, if Captain Gabe is on the job," William says, spearing a sugar snap pea neatly with his fork. He lets the statement hang. Everyone knows what happens when Captain Gabe is on the job - things get done, and in a timely fashion.

*

Joe kind of thinks he's hallucinating. There's a kid. A skinny kid with weird hair and thick glasses and, like, jeans and a Misfits t-shirt on.

"Hey," the kid says. He folds up his long legs and sits cross-legged across from Joe.

_Awesome_, Joe thinks. _This is motherfucking awesome_. He's dying, and his subconscious dredges up some scene kid, what the fuck. Sure, a small part of him - especially now - wishes he'd stuck with his guitar instead of entering into the exciting field of botany, but seriously? Seriously, how is this helpful in any way?

"Hey," the kid says again, and he leans forward, hands spread, and Joe can't feel the fingers he _knows_ are sliding along his cheeks, his temples, but there's a sudden painless moment that's so pure he nearly passes out from sheer relief.

This hallucination is solidly _kick-ass_. Joe's the best at this. He's overwhelmed by his own awesome here.

The guy grins. A sort of sideways, wonky grin, and he brings his shoulder up to rub at the side of his jaw without taking his hands away from Joe, and even though the pain is slowly rolling back into his body - even then, Joe feels like a huge weight has been lifted, like he doesn't have to worry anymore, like whatever will be will fucking be or something. He's suddenly _Zen_.

He can die now. It'll be okay.

*

Bob has never before had any beef with McCoy. "Move," Bob says.

McCoy holds out his hands and fails to get the fuck out of Bob's way. "Listen, Bryar"

"What part of _move_ do you not understand?" Bob asks.

Saporta sighs and waves a hand towards Asher. "Get your boy out of the way, Corporal," he says.

Asher looks torn for a split-second before curling a hand over McCoy's bicep and jerking her head to the side. "Come on, McCoy, it's no use."

McCoy narrows his eyes. "We've almost got him," he says. "That fucker isn't going to budge if you threaten him, not unless you've got a hell of a lot of firepower to back you up."

Bob says, "Who says I don't?"

Saporta clamps a hand over McCoy's neck. "Travis, I like you. Bills likes you, and you're a damn good negotiator, a first rate pinochle player, and I admire the way you wield your meaty fists, dude, but leave this one to us professionals, okay? You've had two days to get him out, the time for talking is done."

McCoy snorts and he shrugs out of Saporta's grip but lets Asher steer him out of the doorway. "Watch out for the boys, Karsa and Liam."

It isn't until later, until Karsa, who looks no more than _eight_, fucking _shanks_ him, that Bob realizes McCoy meant watch out for their fucking _knives_.

*

"God save me from fucking religious zealots," Gabe says, rubbing at his jaw. He spits out a wad of blood and then grins over at Travis. "No need to say I told you so."

"Of course not, man," Travis says, leaning back against the back wall.

Bryar's got a hand pressed against his side, scowling. Travis thinks maybe when they get out of this Bryar's going to fucking blow the entire planet up.

They're in a room at the rear of Petram's house, not particularly secure - there's a fucking window, even - but Travis figures they're just regrouping. Gabe wouldn't be so damn cheery if he didn't think they could kick their way out after they catch their breath. Fucking sneaky Karsa and Liam. Fucking _Petram_. The only reason Bryar didn't put up more of a fight, Travis is sure, is because Karsa's, like, ten years old - no one wants to be responsible for taking out a kid, even if he's a vicious little piss-ant.

And then the back wall of the house gives out and Travis stumbles and lands on his ass, looking dazedly up at a grinning Toro and Lacey.

"I tugged on the window," Lacey says, holding up a piece of wood, "this place is a fucking shithole."

"Which is good," Gabe says, "except for the part where the whole village probably heard that crash."

Chaln is hovering over Lacey's shoulder, wringing his hands. "You must hurry," he says, and Travis gets why Asher always liked this dude now. He's an all right guy. Chaln presses a heavy key into Travis's hand. "He is still at the cave. I'll tell Petram I saw you near the temple, but you must go quickly."

Lewis jogs up, Gaylor right behind her, a bulky pack on his back and a silver case in hand.

"All clear for now," Lewis says.

"You know where this cave is?" Gabe asks Travis.

Travis nods and rolls up onto his feet. He does a quick scan for the rest of his team - Asher takes a half-step in front of him.

"They're guarding the gate," Gabe says, clapping him on the shoulder. "Lead the way, Dr. McCoy."

_Cave_ is kind of a misnomer. It's carved into the side of a mountain, yes, but the walls are too smooth to have occurred naturally, and ten yards in the stone bleeds into sleek blue-gray metal. An Ancient outpost.

Lacey whistles, glancing around the airy, high-arched ceiling, flashlight sighted along the barrel of his P-90.

Gabe swipes a hand over the top of a console and asks, "Did we know this was here?"

"It's inactive," Travis says, and currently not something he's concerned with. If McKay wants to risk sending another group through after this debacle, he can knock himself out. Travis isn't stepping foot on this planet ever again. "Through here, I think."

Bryar grunts and moves around him. He's got his jacket stripped off, a hastily and messily done bandage wrapped around his midsection, and Travis wonders how Gaylor even got him to pause long enough for that.

There's an unlit torch hooked onto the wall before a downward spiral of steps. Lacey tosses Bryar his lighter and the oil-laden twigs puff into flames. Travis follows Bryar down, the carved stone steps illuminated orange in the firelight, Lewis tucked close to his side with a frown of concentration on her face, brow furrowed.

He glances once behind them, only long enough to see Gaylor fumbling with his case, to see Gabe roll his eyes and heft the med pack onto his own shoulder.

And then they're in front of a thick wooden door.

Travis says, "Bryar, here," and tosses him the key. He doesn't really want to get in Bryar's way. It's bad enough that, technically, this mess is partly his team's fault. There's a good chance Bryar'll still take that out on them later. Travis is a big guy, he can hold his own, but Bryar's been trained to kill.

Bryar doesn't say anything as he unlocks the door and yanks it open.

Joe, dirty and bloody and huddled into himself, one arm cradled to his chest, the other sort of tucked protectively over his head, gives them a vague, little smile. "Oh, hey guys, awesome."

*

"Dude, I'm fine," Joe says.

Joe doesn't look fine. Joe looks as far from fine as fucking possible. Bob, kneeling down in front of him, peers into his eyes. "Are you drugged?"

"Nope. No way, I'm in more freaking pain than you can imagine here, but I'm _fine_." Joe squeezes Bob's arm. It's a weak squeeze, but a pressure that'd been building in Bob's chest finally breaks, settles down sourly in his belly as justifiable concern instead of nearly debilitating fear and rage.

"Joe"

"Christ, it's fucking good to see you," Joe says, and then he passes out.

Bob has a mild heart attack.

Gaylor takes care of Joe's wrist and pats Bob's shoulder. "He's good for right now," he says. "I wish we'd brought a fucking 'jumper, though."

Lacey's voice echoes as he yells down the stairwell, "Incoming. They're all _kids_, what the fucking fuck?"

"Why the hell are we still coming to this world?" Gaylor asks, shaking his head. He snaps his case shut and stuffs his supplies into his pack, then shoves it at Saporta. "Try not to jar him too much, Bryar."

Bob arches an eyebrow, but doesn't bother commenting. Just hefts Joe carefully into his arms - he's heavier than he looks, and Bob tries not to think about how, in the past year, he's gotten entirely too used to lugging around unconscious scientists.

They make it outside the cave without incident, but then Lacey's there, brandishing his gun at a small contingent of preteens. He's saying, "This's a motherfucking cult, right? Look, Isaac or Malachai or whatever, I'm gonna have to ask you to part the ways here and let us through. I'm not above bashing some skulls"

"Lacey," Saporta says. He scratches at his neck, stance impatient.

"Only telling the truth, Captain," Lacey says, turning a crazed grin on them.

Bob would like to bash a few skulls himself, his side is _throbbing_, but he's not going to raise a hand to these kids.

Lacey, on the other hand, can do whatever the hell he'd like. Bob isn't going to stop him. Maybe it still makes him a shit, turning a blind eye, but he doesn't happen to currently give a fuck.

Saporta blows out a long breath.

The kids are staring at them, but not in any particularly menacing fashion. Bob's sure this is how they disarm their enemies. You take your eyes off them for a second and they're burying daggers into you.

And then the small one out front, the one that'd been with Karsa earlier, tugs on another boy's tunic and says, "They should go now, Sorn."

Sorn nods. He lifts a hand and beckons them with a solemn, "This way, there's a better path to the ring," and Lacey tips his P-90 up onto his shoulder, tucks a thumb into his belt.

"Well, hell," Lacey says. "Helpful psycho kids, awesome."

Saporta slaps him on the back of his head.

*

**[iii]**

Carden lives a surreal fucking life, that's for sure. Months ago, if anyone'd told him he'd be dating a sexually repressed dude who, albeit grudgingly, answers to the name of Skippy, well - there's a good chance that anyone would've gotten punched in the balls. Now, Carden's kind of attached to Skip. It's almost like having a puppy. Sure, he may have to actually marry him to get into his pants, but accidental marriages happen all the time off-world. Maybe he'll just have to figure out a way to get both of them out on a mission. Carden's actually not too worried about it.

He bites into an apple and leans back against the corridor wall, absently listening to the back and forth shouting of the two younger Jonas brothers inside the sub-level 'jumper bay.

Crawford's sitting on the floor across from him, dozing with his arms crossed over the top of his drawn-up knees.

"How'd you pull this gig?" Carden asks him. They're babysitting. Carden's part of the regular base security detail, so it's pretty normal for him to end up trailing after scientists - making sure they don't blow themselves up or get lost or fall off a pier or whatever - but Sergeant Crawford's usually not in the rotation.

Crawford shrugs. "Bored, man. Colligan got us grounded."

"Unsurprising," Carden says. Colligan bugs the shit out of Carden. He keeps getting up in his face and saying shit like _fo' shizzle_ and calling himself Cash Money and Carden's practicing his restraint - Skip says he's _proud_ of him; how fucked up is that? - and he very carefully does not punch Colligan in the head.

Carden's been escorting Skip's brothers to the sub-level 'jumper bay almost every afternoon for the past three weeks. He has no idea what they're doing - he doesn't really care - but he's heard a lot of strange noises. Crawford jumps at a piercing screech and cut-off yelp, but Carden just takes another bite of his apple.

Scrambling to his feet, Crawford says, "What the?" He peers around the doorjamb. "Oh shit."

Carden takes his time chewing. "What?" he says, a little garbled.

"They're gone," Crawford says, then ducks as a streak of light darts through the doorway, leaving a smoking black hole in the corridor wall by Carden's head.

"Fuck," Carden says. He drops what's left of his apple and pushes past Crawford. Somehow, he doesn't think Skip'll forgive him if he loses his brothers.

The bay's empty - only two of the three submersible puddlejumpers are still docked.

"Jesus," Crawford says, scratching his forehead.

"They could be cloaked." Another flash of light - electricity, Carden thinks - circles the room, jumping from panel to panel, sparking. Carden taps his radio. "Dr. Jonas, report," he says, and refuses to panic when there's no answer.

Crawford cautiously slinks further into the room. "Do you think it really worked?"

Carden shakes his head and says, "What?" absently as he steps back into the hall, trying to hail Jonas again, feeling only slightly better when he realizes his comm.'s actually dead.

"The _time machine_," Crawford says. He's staring at the ceiling.

Carden follows his gaze, sees the black scorch marks in the metal, spreading out like a starburst. "Huh." That's actually pretty fucking cool.

"All right, look. I'm going to poke around," Crawford says. He taps his radio, says, "Colonel" before cutting off and pulling a face. He looks over at Carden. "Your link dead, too?"

"Yeah," he says. "I'll go track the colonel down the old fashioned way."

Crawford nods. "Right," he says, and then the lights flicker off and Carden stumbles out of the doorway, almost overwhelmed by the acrid scent of electrical discharge.

His fingers catch at the doors as they slide closed, and he strong-arms an opening wide enough for his shoulder. "Crawford," he shouts. The pressure from the door is intense, he's not sure how long he can hold it open, but it's completely silent in the pitch-black bay. "Crawford," he says again, then, "Fuck, fucking shit," between panting breaths. With another curse he twists and lets the doors shut behind him, loping off to get help.

*

Ian has been trapped in the sub-level 'jumper bay for the better part of a half hour. Maybe longer, he's not sure - he'd woken up with a killer headache and water lapping at his prone body, bay lights on but dim and static. He's got a dead radio and the door mechanism isn't working, but there are thumps on the other side and he'd managed to shout, "I'm fine!" up against the crack and heard two knocks in response.

The good news is that, from his position near the doors, the water doesn't seem to be rising any higher than his mid-thigh. The bad news is that the heater apparently shorted out and it's steadily turning fucking _freezing_, and he's starting to lose feeling in his feet. He's marching in place, but the tingles that had been shooting up his ankles, calves - they aren't so much tingles anymore. They're more like twinges, barely there messages from his nerve-ends, and Ian thinks he's dangerously close to succumbing to hypothermia here. Awesome.

Okay, so, higher ground. Higher ground would be great, but the highest ground in the chamber, other than where he currently is, is on top of one of the puddlejumpers - in the middle of the room, right where the water is deepest. Ian's going to have to swim for it.

"I can do this," Ian says, taking deep breaths. He peels off his still relatively dry jacket, hesitates a second, then skims off his shirt, too, holding them both awkwardly over his head as he starts trudging towards the 'jumpers.

Thankfully, his feet never fully leave the ground, but the water's up to his chin by the time he reaches the first 'jumper, and then he's got to figure out how to _climb_ the fucker. He struggles for hand and footholds with shaky fingers, muscles of his legs cramping as he pushes and pulls himself topside. He's panting by the time he flattens out on the blessedly dry metal, gazing up at the burnt ceiling blearily, tired beyond all reason.

He thinks he should tug his shirt and jacket back on, but he can't get his arms to work yet. He's barely shivering, but he can hear his teeth chattering in his head, and his vision blackens around the edges. He fights a blink, eyelids heavy.

"Fuck," he slurs.

"Hey."

The other voice barely registers; at least, not until warm fingers close over his arm, pressing into the inner curve of his elbow. The warmth spreads into a painful, searing heat and Ian jerks his arm away with a shaky, "Shit, _ow_."

"Sorry, sorry," the voice says, and Ian turns his head, ends of his curls sliding icy-wet along his shoulders.

The guy attached to the voice is sitting next to him, folded up on his knees, hands pressed against his chest. He's skinny, with a shock of brown hair and knobby wrists and a pale strip of thigh peeking out from a rip in his jeans. "Sorry," he says again, "you're cold."

"Um." Ian's teeth cut into his lower lip, jaw locked to keep from shivering. Shivering's good, though. Shivering means he's not going to fall asleep, means he's probably not going to die, which is awesome. "Yeah," he says, and laughs a little, almost breathless.

Big dark eyes watch him unblinkingly, curious, behind a pair of square glasses, and then he reaches out a hand for Ian again, touch lighter, skimming along the inside of his bicep.

Ian stops shivering. He stops shivering, mouth relaxing around a sigh, even though he's still cold; he's _freezing_, the 'jumper at his back like a block of ice, but it's likeit's like it doesn't _matter_ anymore.

Ian says, "What?" and the dude says, "Shhhh," and, Ian's eyes flutter closed.

*

The coolest thing about time travel, Nick had always thought, is that it's one of the ways multi-dimensions are formed. You're there one moment and then you're not, and it's the same, but different - and there's this world out there, almost exactly the same, down to the tiniest, minutest detail, except you're not there anymore, you're _here_. It's why you can technically go _back_ in time, but you can't jump forward; discounting solar flares and the surreal magic of General O'Neill and SG1. Joe says it gives him headaches, thinking about it.

The uncool thing about time travel, apparently, is how everything goes a little unstable and wonky. Nick's jacket is smoking. He smells burnt hair, the fingers gripping his datapad are a little raw, and Joe's got this dazed, fuzzy look in his eyes.

"Whoa," Joe says. He spreads out his arms, like he's losing his balance, but he doesn't tip over.

Nick glances down at his datapad, does a quick calculation in his head, then beams at Joe - and promptly _stops_ beaming, because his mouth feels like it's being pulled apart, his lips are so dry. "Ten minutes," he says. Ten freaking _minutes_.

"You mean." Joe blinks, eyes clearing. "You mean we did it?"

"We did it," Nick says. He does a little dance. Their calibrated landing position in the cloaked 'jumper is approximately five feet to the left of the puddlejumper of ten minutes ago. He rushes to the front of the 'jumper, and Nick watches out the windshield, watches himself argue with Joe before ducking inside, and it's a little like seeing a home movie; the pane of glass gives him a little perspective, downplays the complete weirdness of seeing himself - a live walking and talking _ten minutes ago_ version of himself. It's freaking awesome.

They wait it out, because even without the Ancient's dire warnings, Nick knows it's not a good idea to mingle. If they manage to accidentally stop them from leaving, well, who knows what could happen - entropic cascade failure could be the least of their problems.

And then the room kind of explodes.

"Oh, man," Joe says from beside him.

No wonder pieces of Nick's uniform are burned off - they sort of disappeared in a whoosh of blue sparks and _flames_.

"Uncloak us," Nick says.

Joe calls up the HUD, but an electrical current rips through the center of the 'jumper and the entire bay goes dark.

*

When the lights come back on, there's about a foot of rising water flooding the bay.

Joe doesn't think twice, just elbows Nick out of the way and heads to the back of the 'jumper, prying open the control casing for the doors. He hooks up his handheld and starts working on rerouting the minimal power they've got juicing the rest of the 'jumper's core systems - she's barely alive; Colonel Sheppard might actually kill them if they can't fix her.

It takes about twenty minutes for Joe to get the doors open, and Crawford's managed to make it across the bay and up onto one of the other puddlejumpers.

"What the actual heck," Nick says, sloshing through the water that's rapidly spilled into the back of the 'jumper.

It's _freezing_.

And there'sthere's some sort of _shadow_ hanging over Crawford. It twists, and Joe sees an impression of a person, maybe, blooming from a silhouette into a skinny guy in jeans, then just as quickly darkening to a shadow again. The head whips towards them as they stomp down the ramp into the bay, and then it disappears, poof, like smoke.

Joe blinks, and thinks maybe he imaged the whole thing.

"What?" Nick says again.

"I think I hit my head," Joe says.

"No, no, I saw it, too," Nick says, and Joe only thinks that means Nick _also_ hit his head, but whatever.

Crawford isn't shaking, but he's too white. Like, scary pale, and Joe scrambles up the back of the 'jumper and strips out of his jacket, the thin, stiff material not really warming at all, but better than nothing. "He's not really responding," Joe says. He gropes for Crawford's neck, presses his fingertips to his pulse and tries not to panic.

*

Brendon had been on his way back from visiting Joe in the infirmary - he'd actually been there for Bob, though, because Brendon and Bob are, like, totally tight now, and Brendon had been _worried_ about him, about his fragile state of mind with Joe all hurt - when he was accosted by Corporal Carden.

Carden had grabbed hold of his jacket collar, said, "Let's go, Urie," and then stole his comm. link from his ear and pulled him down the hallway.

Brendon does not know Carden. Carden kind of keeps to himself and the 'gate techs - Brendon's heard rumors that he's dating Nick and Joe Jonas's older brother, even though he can't be sure; who the heck is Skippy, right? - and he's got a mean resting face to rival Bob's, so Brendon usually stays a respectable distance away.

But Carden drags him down to the sub-levels of Atlantis and pushes him at a really dark and scary corridor and says, "Lights, now, then doors," and Brendon's been at it for nearly twenty minutes. He's got minimal power and the arm-strength of a gnat, apparently, since the doors aren't budging. The actual door mechanism is fried. He doubts even Dr. McKay could get it working - which, okay, is a total lie, and he really wonders why they haven't sent him down here yet.

They sent Greta, though, and she's sitting cross-legged on the floor next to Brendon, brow furrowed at the datapad that's hooked up to the crystals.

"Every time we get it running it shorts out again," Greta says, frowning. "It'sthere's a looping power surge."

"Right, right," Brendon says, "something'sit's not a _time loop_, right?"

Greta rolls her eyes. "It doesn't work that way."

Brendon isn't so sure. He knows the Jonas brothers were working on a time-traveling puddlejumper down here, at least, so it's, like, a possibility. An _awesome_ possibility. Maybe whatever's in that room is living the same day over and over again. Brendon's pretty sure that's happened at the SGC before.

"And even if it _did_," Greta says, "the energy readings are different each time. We just got aBren!"

Brendon jerks his fingers out of the way just in time - there's possibly a small fire in the door panel now. Great.

Carden shifts forward from where he's been leaning against the wall and says, "All right, that's it, anyone got a crowbar?"

*

Pete says, "There's intricacies to this, you know," before jamming the flat end of the pry bar into the seam between the doors and wriggling it into a more solid position. Gerard slips two flat pieces of steel on either side and Pete jimmies the crowbar in further, slip-sliding against the metal. Then he steps back and gestures towards it with a flourish, mouth quirked up at Carden. "Go to it, my friend."

Carden arches an eyebrow. "I think I could've done that."

Pete pats the corridor wall. "No damaging my sweet baby," he says fondly. "You would've scraped the shit out of her, you heathen, and then bent her all to hell. We just need you for your guns."

Gerard is in complete agreement with Pete; he even claps his hands over his eyes when Carden grabs for the crowbar. "I can't watch," he says.

"Chill," Carden says.

Gerard cringes a little at the ominous creaking, the screech of the locks giving way. The only good thing about this is that it'll probably be pretty fun fitting the door back together again. The panel crystals are entirely black, tangle of wires unrecognizable - they'll have to scrounge up all kinds of parts all over Atlantis.

"You're certainly calm about this," Pete says.

Carden's voice is strained when he says, "Not really." The steel plates clatter to the floor, something _sloshes_, and Gerard peeks through his fingers to see Carden's shoulder jammed in the door, face red with exertion, water flooding in from the bay, washing over Gerard's boots.

Carden curses, low; Gerard barely catches the, "Fucking shit, fucking Crawford, fucking _Jonas brothers_."

He watches as, inch by inch, Carden strong-arms the door wide enough to slide through sideways.

It's darker in the bay than in the corridor.

Pete splashes in the ankle deep water and says, "So this is gonna be a bitch to clean up."

*

Chris is not exactly sure what he's doing on Atlantis. One day he'd been bored as fuck, working out of Mercy, shelling percoset to the misguided masses, and the next he'd been trache-ing this huge black dude with a gold tattoo on his forehead. He'd signed a confidentiality agreement, met Mike, worked under a fucking _mountain_ for three years, and that had been that.

He doesn't regret a thing - hell, no. Discounting space vampires and evil robots, Chris's life on Atlantis is pretty sweet: cushy quarters, cutting edge _alien_ technology, hot military chicks. Of course, like anywhere, sometimes people die on you. And sometimes you get bodies of friends or coworkers, shot to hell or sucked down to dry, barely recognizable husks and there's nothing you can do except bag 'em and send 'em home.

Comparatively speaking, Crawford's not that bad off. He's pale and cold, lips tinted blue, unresponsive, but his pulse is steady and strong - Chris isn't exactly sure how that's possible, but he's not going to question it. Weird shit happens all the time here.

Chris hooks his stethoscope around his neck, frowning thoughtfully, and turns to Simpson. "Warm him up slow," he says. There's a chance he'll crash, but Chris doesn't think so. Whatever's going on with Crawford is well beyond him; as a doctor, this kind of mysterious shit used to bug the crap out of him, but he's learned that sometimes Atlantis takes the lives of her people into her own hands, and there's not much he can do about it.

Carden and Johnson are - well, they're not _hovering_. Chris has yet to see either of them visibly anxious about anything, even when they so obviously are. Now, they're leaning against the wall about two feet apart from each other, Carden's arms crossed over his chest and Johnson's loose at his sides, fingers half-curled inward. Both the very picture of nonchalance.

They're not fooling _him_, though. Chris is a fucking expert at tells, and Johnson's biting into his lower lip - he looks a little wan and worn around the edges - and Carden's eyebrows are just the slightest bit furrowed, even though both their expressions are carefully blank.

"So," Chris says. He pauses, slips a pen out of his pocket, and resists the urge to smirk - there's no guarantees, gut feelings aside; he really shouldn't find this as amusing as he does. He shakes the pen between his fingers, not really a nervous habit - more like a constant need to always be doing something with his hands. "While I'm not exactly sure _why_, he seems to be stable."

"You're not sure why," Johnson says, eyes narrowed.

Chris shrugs. "He feels like a corpse, but his vitals are strong. We're fairly confident he'll pull through."

"He was in there less than forty minutes," Carden says, slowly. "He said he was fine. The Jonas brothers are fine."

"Yeah, and Crawford essentially _is_ okay," Chris says, _even though he maybe shouldn't be_. "The water probably cooled at a faster pace than he'd been anticipating." Either that, or he'd just manned up and taken the pain, accepting that help would come when it came. Chris doesn't exactly get that attitude. Chris would've been cursing them out through the door the entire time until they finally brought out the explosives. Forty freaking minutes, geez. If they weren't off-world, Chris is pretty sure Sheppard and McKay would've had that door in pieces in under ten.

He doesn't even want to discuss Nick and Joe Jonas, who, while scathed and minimally burned, appear to think they've successfully _traveled back in time_ \- that's a job for Blackinton, not Chris.

"Oh my god, Alex," DeLeon says, whipping aside the curtain and tumbling into Johnson, fisting his hands in Johnson's jacket. "What happened, is Ian okay, oh my god!"

Johnson curls an arm around DeLeon's back and pats his shoulder. "He's fine," he says.

Carden snorts.

Johnson sends him something very close to a glare and says again, "He's fine, he'll be fine."

"Sure," Chris says. He clicks the end of his pen, off and on and off again, before sliding it into the pocket of his white coat. Sometimes, he has trouble believing that DeLeon's an actual licensed medical doctor - but then, sometimes he has trouble believing that he's a licensed medical doctor. And that someone out there thinks they're both at the top of their field. Or expendable. That could be it, what with all the aliens trying to kill them and everything.

DeLeon abruptly lets go of Johnson and takes a step back. "All right," he says, waving a hand towards the door. "Shoo, get out of here, I'll find out everything and spill at dinner," then he spots Dex lurking around for his post-mission exam, goes, "Eep," and scurries off into the next room. Weird.

Johnson has a disgusting indulgent grin on his face, and Chris rolls his eyes.

"Seriously," he says. "Get out."

**[iv]**

William thinks Johnson looks tired. "You look exhausted, my friend," he says, sitting down next to him on the common lounge couch. "Come. Tell me your troubles."

Johnson quirks an eyebrow at him. "Yeah, no."

"There are deep shadows under your eyes. Epic shadows, Johnson, I could write poems about these shadows," he presses a palm to his chest, "about how they mirror your tragic soul."

Greta says, "Please don't let him," following William down onto the couch.

William is affronted, and wounded to his very core. William's epic poetry is the stuff of Chaucer; there could be quests and maidens and knights and dragons and True Love, all because of Johnson's tragic half-moon smudges, like fallen angels left thumb-prints when they wiped away his tears. Oh. Oh, that's _lovely_. He's going to have to write that one down.

Greta kicks off her shoes and wriggles her feet under William's thigh. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," Johnson says, slumping down further on the couch and tipping his head back to stare at the ceiling.

He looks pale. Pale and tired; William is sure this is a bad combination. William, however, is not a doctor - in the medical field, at any rate - and Johnson's other half most decidedly is. William's sure little DeLeon is taking great care of Johnson in his time of distress.

"At least Sergeant Crawford's awake," Greta says, and when Private Novarro flounces - that's the very word for it, too, William _swears_ \- into the lounge and Greta's entire countenance lights up, cheeks pinking, and William feels a frown pull at his mouth. A horrible, unsightly wrinkle-inducing frown.

He just wishes Greta would find a more appropriate suitor - perhaps someone who doesn't wear his cap sideways with quite so much earnestness and pep.

Novarro leans into the couch arm and smiles down at Greta and says, "Hi," and he's honestly cute, if you go for that, but William has his doubts that Novarro could properly take _care_ of his Greta. Which is something he will never voice, because Greta's bound to take exception, and the very last thing William wants is Greta mad at him. There'd be a distressing lack of cuddling during movie nights, for one.

Johnson makes some sort of sound, half-asleep, before jerking upright and rubbing a hand over his face. "Jesus Christ," he mutters and William eyes him curiously. Something is plaguing Johnson, he's sure of it.

"I'm here for you, Johnson, I hope you know that," William says. Captain Gabe calls William _magnanimous_. He calls him sweet and kind-hearted and slightly soft in the head, and he calls him all this with a frighteningly enormous grin stretching his mouth. William fully agrees with Captain Gabe. He should be awarded hugs and smooches for his goodwill.

Johnson flips him off.

Uncalled for, perhaps - he's simply trying to be nice, to be _supportive_ \- but it makes William smile anyway. He shifts so he's farther from Greta - a tragedy - and instead a warm, _supportive_ bundle against Johnson's side.

He's fully expecting to be pushed away; Johnson isn't the most demonstrative guy, despite the many times he's let DeLeon sprawl all over him in public. But Johnson just makes a little noise of protest and half-heartedly tries to shrug William off. Half-hearted shrugs are no match for William. And then Johnson gives up and presses _back_.

It's possible, William thinks, that this isn't something William can fix.

*

Alex would give anything, _any_ fucking _thing_, to have this constant nagging headache go away. It's not even close to migraine proportions, he doesn't think, but it's always there, a pressure at his temples, above his eyes, and it's slowly driving him insane. The flashes of black at his peripheral vision aren't really helping, either.

Singer worriedly flicks a pen light across his pupils and says, "You're reacting fine, Al, I'm not sure what's wrong, but," he bites his lip, "it could be neurological."

Awesome, Alex thinks. "Maybe I have a tumor," he says, and Singer pulls a face.

"Stop, it's not a tumor," he says, and Cash does a shitty Schwarzenegger impression from across the room where he's sitting by Ian.

Alex bites his lip to keep from grinning - that just encourages the douche.

Alex swings his legs. "It could be." Honestly, he just wants his head to stop fucking hurting. If it was a tumor maybe they could, like, operate and take the fucker _out_. Drugs don't seem to be affecting anything, either; they just make him drowsy, but the headache's still there, a low-level annoying hum along his skull.

"We need to scan your brain," Singer says, and, honestly, Alex's had about fifty million brain scans since coming to Atlantis, they're pretty much routine, so he just nods okay.

The scan takes less than five minutes and Alex hums the theme from _Dallas_ and wonders if that'll show up somehow, like it'll affect his brainwaves or whatever, but Singer just harrumphs at the screen and shows him the slices of his skull afterwards, finger tracing multicolored lines with a frown of concentration on his face.

"Nothing," Singer says.

Cash whoops, because Cash is an asshole.

Singer glances over his shoulder at him. "Nothing, as in nothing's _wrong_, asshole," he says. "It's perfectly normal."

Alex flips Cash off with a smirk.

Ian says, "So did you scan my brain while I was out?" voice still a little rusty - it had been scary for a while, even though Alex would never admit it; Ian had been out of it for fucking _days_.

"You're fine, Ian," Singer says, tapping on his datapad. "You just need more rest."

"Yeah, but," Ian shrugs, "I was fucking hallucinating, man."

Ian's the only guy Alex knows who could just come out and admit that, who'd be able to admit that and not make it seem like any kind of weakness at all. It's a fact. Ian imagined a kid with warm hands and black-framed glasses who'd kind of hypnotized him into a coma, and what-the-fuck-ever, it happened and it's over.

Alex is seeing strange shadows, blurs of black, and he feels like a fucking moron, especially now that Singer's confirmed he doesn't have any physical cause for it.

"So I'm having psychosomatic delusions," Alex says evenly, ignoring the heat on the tops of his cheeks. He's not _blushing_. If he thinks that hard enough, he figures it might eventually become true.

Singer says, "Well, maybe not," but he's biting into his lower lip and giving him huge baby deer eyes.

Alex sighs. "You're gonna make me go to Blackinton, aren't you?"

"Ian has to go, too?" Singer says, hands spread out in front of him.

Alex grabs his wrists and tugs him in close, 'til Singer's caged between his knees. He leans forward, dropping his forehead on Singer's shoulder. Singer shakes off his grip and slides his arms around his back in a loose hug.

Singer says, "It'll be fine, Al, promise."

*

"Hmmmm," Blackinton says, crossing his legs. "And how are you feeling, Joe?"

Joe feels like crap, to be perfectly honest, but he just grins and shoots Blackinton a thumbs-up. "Awesome."

"Cool, cool." Blackinton bobs his head. "Anything you want to talk about?"

Joe shrugs. "Not really."

"Okay." Blackinton bites his lip and scribbles something on the pad of paper resting on his knee. Then he links his fingers together and smiles at Joe. "Well, I'm here if you need me."

He looks kind of expectant, so Joe says, "Sure."

"Dr. Ritter says you're climbing steadily towards tip-top shape again, so I'm going to go ahead and advise Colonel Sheppard that you can return to active duty. _Light_ active duty, considering your cast." He taps his pen on the paper and keeps eye contact with Joe, grin fixed, and, really, Joe suspects he does that creepy shit on purpose.

Joe gets to his feet and shoves the hand not lashed to his chest in a sling into his pocket. "So we're good?" he asks, inching towards the door.

"We're good," Blackinton says. "But I want to see you next week, Thursday morning, all right?"

"Fine, okay," Joe says over his shoulder before darting out into the hallway with an embarrassing gulping sigh of relief. It's likehe almost _died_, he's perfectly aware of that, and the weird thing is that he's _okay_ with it. And the being okay with dying thing? Is freaking Joe out.

He hasn't been sleeping all that well. It doesn't help that Bob's avoiding him again.

On shaky legs, he walks down the corridor and takes the nearest transporter up to his quarters, then promptly collapses onto his bed, bending an arm over his eyes. The whole thing fucking _sucks_, he thinks. Every time he closes his eyes that same fucking well of peace floods over him, only instead of calming him down, like before, it kicks up his heartbeat and all his muscles clench, like he's _fighting_ it, and he just wants whatever the hell is doing this to him to _go away_.

"Just," Joe says to the empty room, like his psyche is fucking _tangible_. "Just leave me the fuck alone."

"Why?"

Joe jumps, whipping his arm off his face and jerking upwards. "What the fuck?"

The kid looks exactly how Joe remembers; maybe a little more bright-eyed, a little more fucking _fascinated. _

"You," Joe says, flailing. "I can't"

Cocking his head, the dude sits on the end of Joe's bed, and, like, Joe feels the shift of the mattress, sees the dip in the blankets, pulled down by his weight - like he's _real_, not just some fucked up part of Joe, some split his brain had made to fucking cope or whatever - and maybe he should consider _actually_ talking to Blackinton about this, but at the moment he kind of just wants Bob.

"Okay," Joe says, getting up. "Okay, I'm going to go and you'renot coming with me."

Joe doesn't stop and look back, just slides his palm along the door crystals and slips into the hall, fingers biting into his palm to keep from shaking. It takes him three minutes to walk to Bob's quarters, two rights and a left along the maze of corridors, and then he leans into Bob's door chime.

When the door opens, Bob's standing there, arms crossed and glaring at Joe, and Joe is _done_ with Bob's attitude, okay, he can't handle it right now.

Joe says, "Look, I get it, you're surly, something crawled up your ass and died, but can you save it for when I'm _not_ losing my mind?"

Bob's face goes blank. "What?"

"There's no one standing behind me, right?" Joe asks.

"No," Bob says, eyes widening just the slightest bit.

It doesn't exactly make Joe feel much better, considering he's not sure anyone else can even see the kid. He doesn't turn around, though, he doesn't check. He just pushes past Bob and drops down onto his bed and says, "I'm taking a nap."

Joe curls up on his side, facing the wall, and presses his eyes closed. He hears the door slide closed, hears the heavy clomp of Bob's boots and then feels Bob's hand close over his shoulder. Joe hunches a little, 'til Bob's knuckles graze his ear.

"Hey," Bob says, gruff and low.

"Napping," Joe says.

There's a huff of breath and Bob lets him go. Joe tries not to feel a loss and turns his head into the pillow, breathing in a mouthful of fabric softener and Head &amp; Shoulders and Bob. He's instantly drowsy, nights of fitful sleep catching up with him, and he barely moves when Bob circles a big hand around his ankle, pulling his leg straight.

He's vaguely aware of Bob tugging his boots off, of Bob curling up behind him, arm slung over Joe's chest. Bob's heart is a steady beat along his back.

*

Mike is a horrible team leader. "I suck," he tells Chris. He's sprawled over a cot in the infirmary, an arm flung over his face.

"You're drunk," Chris says.

"Well. _Yeah_." Mike thinks this is a stunning given, since he's got a mostly empty rum bottle wedged between his legs. Of course, it hadn't been full when he'd started, and hard liquor and Mike have never been friends, taste wise, so his sips have been on the small side, but. He _wishes_ he were drunk, so he's willing to act the part. He's past tipsy, at least, and he's gone straight into maudlin, with a stop off at self-pity.

The important thingthe important thing is that Mike is a fucking _lousy_ team leader. It doesn't really reflect awesomely on him when people are constantly getting hurt and-or kidnapped under his command.

"Quit being a girl about it," Chris says, because Chris is an unsympathetic asshole. "So you lost Joe. He's the one who wandered off in the first place."

"It's a big deal," Mike says, struggling up until he's propped against the wall, one leg dangling off the end of the mattress. "Bryar thinks it's a big deal. Plus, you know," he flaps a hand around, "that whole mess with Urie and Wentz. And, oh god, remember," he snaps his fingers, "remember when DeLeon got turned into a giant _cat_?"

Chris rolls his eyes. "That wasn't you, dumbass. That was Ballato." He grabs the bottle off the cot and takes a healthy swig.

Mike watches him swallow, bleary-eyed, and says, "Aren't you on duty, Gaylor?"

"Whatever." Chris shrugs.

It's late. At least, Mike thinks it's late. He'd stolen the rum from Morris around ten, so it's gotta be well past midnight now. The infirmary is mostly empty. Crawford's watching them with half-mast eyes and a bemused curl of his lips, but it's not like Mike _cares_. Mike's a fucking mess; he has no idea what he's still doing on Atlantis, except for the fact that he feels like they're all fucking messes, in some way, and that's really fucking profound for someone who's consumed a fifth of Mount Gay.

When the infirmary doors slide open, Mike doesn't even try to hide the bottle. He gives Johnson a little wave.

"Hey," Johnson says, slipping his hands into his pockets. He's rumpled in jeans and an undershirt, hair hanging over half his face.

"Hey," Chris says. "What's up?"

"Can't sleep, so, uh." He shrugs a little without dislodging his hands.

Chris says, "Didn't DeLeon just"

"Doesn't seem to be working," Johnson says, and Mike notes, sort of detachedly, how Johnson's hand shakes when he rubs his palm over his forehead, pushing his hair back.

Chris nods. "All right, hang on. I think we've got something stronger."

Johnson presses his eyes closed and slumps against the wall. His voice is kind of faint on, "Thanks."

*

It isn't so much that Alex can't sleep. It's that he's figured out that whatever the fuck these shadows are, whatever's going on in his brain, they're trying to tell him something. Maybe something his subconscious already knows or whatever, and the deeper his sleep gets, the clearer everything becomes.

The sleeping pills Singer had given him had helped, but he'd jerked awake hours later, still feeling restless, a voice echoing in his head without any recognizable words, an invisible pressure against his, like, fucking spleen or something. It's fucking frustrating, is what it is.

Instead of going back to bed, though, Alex stops by the mess. It's mainly empty, with Gerard and Bryar at one table and Lacey slumped in the corner, a paperback curled open in one hand, the other clutching a flask to his chest. He's mouthing the words as he reads, and Alex steers clear of him, slipping into the chair across from Bryar with a muffled groan.

Bryar gives him an intimidating scowl-eyebrow arch combo, but Alex doesn't give a fuck. He wants to know what's up with Joe. He'd spotted him lurching out of Blackinton's office earlier, looking like warm death; looking how Alex feels, honestly.

Gerard snuffles into his coffee cup and Alex slants him a glance.

Gerard's got glazed zombie eyes. He gives Alex an absent smile. "Hi."

"What the fuck, man," Alex says tiredly.

Bryar grunts.

Gerard nudges one of Morris's homemade brownies towards him. "For stress," he says.

Alex shakes his head. "Not sure I can call this stress, dude," he says, just as a sharp pain slices across his midsection. He freezes, says, "Ow," through gritted teeth. It's almost like the dull pressure from before, when he'd first woken up, only a lot worse. Huh.

"Hey, um, are you okay?" Gerard asks, all big, worried eyes.

"Fine," Alex says, then tries to stand before he realizes Gerard's gripping his arm, and that his hold on him is probably the only thing keeping him upright. "Whoa."

Bryar says, "You're white."

"Thanks." Alex _feels_ white. He feels sort of floaty and not-really-there and then he feels hot. Like, burning hot. There's epic hotness here, and Alex is having some trouble breathing. He pants, "Shit, shit," just before blacking out.

*

"Is it lupus?"

"It's not lupus," Alex says, elbowing Cash in the stomach to get him to back the fuck up. He's hovering, and he's getting on Alex's nerves.

"Is it Huntington's?"

"_No_," Alex says. "You've seriously got to stop marathoning _House_ with Ian." Cash's become something of a hypochondriac. He'd told Alex the day before that he was sure he had armpit cancer. Alex doesn't actually know whether he's serious or just fucking with him. It's hard to tell with Cash.

"Well, why's Johnson so," Cash waves a hand around, "like that?"

_Like that_ is unconscious and scary-pale, and Alex is not freaking out. Alex is calm, cool and collected, and Johnson is going to be fine. He's got a _virus_. A creepy alien stomach virus, it looks like - probably the same one that felled Ager three days ago, and Thompson two days before that - and the fact that there's no plausible explanation for why he's out cold like this is no reason to worry. No reason at all.

"He's sick," Alex says, and Cash rolls his eyes.

"No shit, honest?" Cash says.

Alex waves his hands around. "I'm trying not to panic here, okay. You could be a little supportive." Johnson's restless on the cot, eyes shifting back and forth under closed lids.

Cash frowns. "Maybe you should let Ritter handle this."

"Or me," Gaylor says, walking over with his datapad. "Considering he came in on my watch."

He was _carried_ in, actually, Alex knows. By Sergeant Bryar. If Johnson hadn't been a pale, sweaty, limp mess, Alex might have found the idea of that really hot.

"Why don't you sit down, DeLeon?" Gaylor says. He clicks on a penlight and lifts Johnson's eyelids, then takes his pulse.

Alex collapses into the chair next to Johnson's bed and grabs his hand. He could be offended by Gaylor's casual dismissal, but mostly he's just relieved he doesn't have to worry about staying professional.

"Breathing's still regular," Gaylor says absently. "It's almost like." He pauses, presses his lips together, then flicks a glance towards Alex. "Look, I know it's not the same thing, but I was here when they brought Crawford in, dude. There's something strangely similar going on here."

"The unconsciousness." Alex nods. That'd crossed his mind, too. "But Ian nearly went hypothermic. Al has, like, a fever."

"Body's reacting the same way. How was their blood work after their last mission?"

Alex shrugs. "Fine, as far as I know. Nothing out of the ordinary."

Gaylor frowns down at the datapad. "It's fucking weird," he mutters, and then says louder, "Okay, so, now we wait."

"We wait," Alex echoes.

"Wow, you guys are awesome at this," Cash says, and Alex flips him off.

It's not like he isn't as frustrated as Cash; it's actually a pretty sucktastic idea, waiting, but he knows there's really not much else they can do.

*

Mike is barely alive. Mike has tiny screeching gulls battering at the inside of his skull with their wings and pointy beaks. Mike hasn't had a hangover this bad since eleventh grade, when Betty Fells' dad bought them forties of malt liquor for Fourth of July. Not cool, Betty Fells' dad. Not cool.

"Are you alive?"

Mike snuffles into the bed sheets, inhaling antiseptic. He's pretty sure he's still in the infirmary. "Aspirin," he says, groaning at the sound of his own voice, echoing in his head. If he moves, he's pretty sure he's going to throw up all over himself.

"I think you're gonna need more than aspirin, dude. You've got a mission briefing in three hours."

Three hours? What the fuck, he's supposed to be off-duty for three _days_. "The fuck?" he says thickly. Something pokes him in the back of the shoulder.

"I'm pretty sure you've been passed out for, let's see, yeah. Fifteen hours," Chris says, sounding entirely too cheerful. "And for the span of roughly two full days you steadily went through the rest of Morris's rum, Saporta's stash of Jim Beam and that bottle of wine Ty's been saving for his grand seduction of your second-in-command. More than I've ever seen you drink in all the years I've known you. Kind of impressive."

"Oh, fuck," Mike says. Mike is the biggest screw-up in the Pegasus galaxy, he's sure of it. Even Alex fucking DeLeon never loses full days to binge drinking - except that once, maybe, when they'd had to fish him and Chislett out of the water off the east pier and he'd apparently rambled for two hours at Tyson about his great love of Johnson's boots.

His eyelids are gummy, but he manages to pry them open, oh so carefully, thankful that Chris has the lights dim around his bed. And then he does a slow, painful blink, becausebecause something's hovering over an occupied bed three rows down. Something man-shaped but, like, eerily incorporeal, like a shadow. Mike suppresses a shiver, 'cause that's just bound to make him vomit.

"Hey," he says, low, and Chris bends down closer. "Turn slow, man, tell me I'm not crazy."

Chris arches a bemused eyebrow but obligingly shifts so he's following Mike's eye-line. "What"

"Shhhh," Mike says. "I think it's eating Johnson."

"Fuck," Chris says, loud enough to make Mike wince and grab for his head, which basically makes Mike's stomach roil in protest and, like, twist up into his throat.

He swallows back bile, and when he opens his eyes again, the man-shape's gone.

*

When Alex wakes up, he feels hot and dry and like a band of steel is squeezing his head. He makes it two feet off the bed before throwing up in what he really hopes is a trash bin.

Then there's hands on his face, in his hair, cradling his aching head, and Singer's saying, "Alex, Al, hey, hey," in this incredibly soothing voice, the voice that makes Singer a pretty fantastic doctor - among all the actual medical things he can do, that is.

Singer feeds him water and helps him back into bed and looks at him with these huge, dark eyes that never fail to make Alex feel disgustingly squishy inside.

And then he remembers this dude - this pointy-nosed, thin dude with glasses and a ratty Misfits tee hanging off sharp shoulders. It'd been like arguing with a brick wall. Like dealing with something that wasn't exactly stubbornness, more like an incredible lack of comprehension.

This dude, this _thing_ \- Alex doesn't believe in coincidences or mass hallucinations, and he thinks this is probably exactly what Ian had seen, the same kid with the skinny limbs and wide, blank stare - hadn't wanted Alex to wake up, not yet, but Alex doesn't really appreciate being told what to do.

Now, what with the throwing up and everything, he half wishes he could have a do over.

He's still sluggish, and there're weird trails of light floating off of Singer as he moves closer to the bed. Alex reaches out and grabs Singer's fingers to keep them still.

"Hey," he says, croaks.

"Hey," Singer says. His smile is weak, but it's there, and Alex tries to smile back.

And then Alex clears his throat and says, "So I think there's something stalking me and Ian."

*

**[v]**

Surprisingly, Frank isn't the first one to realize that Gerard isn't sleeping. That's Pete.

Frank thinks it's probably because Pete doesn't sleep much himself, but he's still upset that he didn't catch it, that it took Pete pointing out how tired Gee looked.

Even Bob says, "Yeah, man, he's been like a zombie, we figured you knew," and Frank is, like, totally pissed off at himself, what the fuck.

Pete bites into his peanut butter sandwich and bobs his head. "He's off his game. Me, I'm topnotch on two, three hours sleep, but Gee starts repeating himself and humming ABBA, so it's, like, bad."

"Dr. McKay kicked him out of the lab this morning," Brendon says, "and Spence said he found him wandering the hallways and had to escort him back to your quarters."

"What the fuck," Frank says, fisting his hands on the mess table. "Where the fuck have I been?"

"Tito," Bob says.

Frank palms his forehead. Fucking Tito. He hadn't been back to his pool for nearly three weeks so Frank's been taking a submersible 'jumper out with Ray to sweep for him every day. They're due to leave for another sweep in two hours. Frank isn't sure he should go now, but on the other hand, what's he going to do to Gee, tie him to the bed?

As nice as that image may seem, he knows it's not going to do Gerard any good.

"Anyone know _why_ he isn't sleeping?" Frank asks.

Bob shrugs. The set of his shoulders is pretty tense, though, and Frank knows Bob's been off ever since Joe was rescued from M30-255.

"Shit," Frank says. Even on their good days, he's not always sure how to handle Gerard. Gerard freaks out about weird shit, and even though they've been worlds better at, like, communicating, that doesn't mean Gerard tells him everything that's bugging him. Obviously.

"So, no, really, anyone think this has to do with Crawford's team?" Brendon says.

Frank stares at him. "What?"

"All I'm saying," Brendon says, hands up, waving a little, like he's doing fucking spirit fingers or something, "is that they've all been weird ever since Crawford took Joe and Gerard off-world last month."

Bob's expression barely changes, but Frank can tell he's gone from curious to enraged. It's in the set of his mouth, the way his lips press tighter together.

"Huh," Pete says, nodding. "You're right."

Frank doesn't know where Pete and Brendon get off being so fucking observant all of a sudden. It's kind of depressing.

"I don't usually follow gossip," Brendon says, which is a blatant, bald _lie_, "but word is Crawford's got an imaginary friend."

*

Ian holds up a fist for Blackinton to bump and says, "My man."

"How're you holding up, Sergeant?" Blackinton asks, tapping his pen on a pad of paper, legs crossed. He's got a serene smile on his face. Ian's heard it described as creepy, but he's got nothing against Blackinton. Dude makes him laugh, especially when he goes all British Guy Ripley on Pete's organized talent nights in the mess.

"I'm good." Ian nods. He's generally good. Feels fine, if a little muscle-sore. There's just a little thing that's bugging him. It's minute, almost inconsequential, in the grand scheme of all things Pegasus and alien. "I gotta ask, though. Is it normal for hallucinations to, like, hang around after the fact?"

Blackinton's eyebrows shoot up.

Ian shrugs, figures he might as well go for it. Blackinton'll probably eat this shit up, and hey, even if it doesn't help, at least it'll be funny listening to Blackinton try to explain his psyche. He doesn't actually think he's hallucinating. Not this, at least. He's pretty sure whatever he's seeing is fully real, if really strange. "I mean," Ian says. "He's quiet and all, but I figured it's a little weird he's still here. Since I'm not, like, dying anymore."

Blackinton presses his lips together. "I see," he says. "And is your friendhere now?"

"Nah. He usually pops up when no ones around. So give it to me straight." Ian grins. "Am I crazy?"

*

Gerard has never been what anyone would call well-adjusted. He's an alcoholic, a recovering drug addict. He once spent nearly three months in complete silence and he's got a series of paintings, somewhere in storage back on earth, depicting his own death in increasingly horrific ways.

Still, there's having issues, and then there's being fucking _insane_, and Gerard feels like he's dangerously close to losing his mind.

His brother had killed himself over fifteen years ago.

Mikey is _gone_. Mikey is not standing in front of him, looking like he's just rolled out of bed, like he hasn't combed his hair in three days, like he'd looked every day of junior high, before Gerard stopped paying attention.

"You. You need to go away," Gerard says, voice shaking. He wants to press his eyes closed, but at the same time he _doesn't_.

"You're not sleeping," Not-Mikey says, and fucking _duh_ he's not sleeping.

His vision's been fucked up for days, blurry and black at the edges, and every time he closes his eyes it just gets worse. Shadows flickering across his mind's eye, impressions, that creepy feeling like he's being _watched_, neck hair prickling.

He wants Frank, but Frank's out with Ray again, and Gerard likes Tito a whole lot, so he understands why, but he really, really wants Frank. Frank'll tell him he's not crazy.

"You're not real," Gerard tries.

"I'm not?" Not-Mikey looks down at himself, swipes a palm absently along a jean-clad thigh. He gives Gerard a head-cock, eyes questioning, and then he's gone, like he's twisted up in a small tornado of black smoke that quickly disperses into nothing, starting from the outside and going in.

There's a buzzing in Gerard's ears, a pressure against his eardrum, and he grits his teeth as his eyes water. "Go _away_," Gerard says, because he knows he's still there, even if he can't see him.

There's no answer, but Gerard hadn't really been expecting one.

*

Ryland practices patient confidentiality and all, but he also works for the government, and doesn't have half as many scruples as his predecessor, Heightmeyer. Ryland likes being in the know. He likes the advantage of having basically every ear on base - even Colonel Sheppard comes in like clockwork every week to stare at his walls and complain about Dr. McKay and quiz him about his knowledge of Roxette.

He's not going to let information about his patients slip idly from his mouth, he's not going to _gossip_, but he knows a thing or three about base security - he's _paid_ to know - so he doesn't hesitate very much at all to bring up the whole mass hallucination thing, first with Keller, and then with the colonel.

Keller, because there's a chance it's all medically related, and Colonel Sheppard, because, medically related or not, he's got a bunch of scientists and soldiers under his command who might very well be mentally unstable. It's his fucking duty to pass that info on. If they want to take it to Weir, they can take it to Weir.

In line at the mess, Suarez nudges him in the back with his elbow. "Hey, Ryland," he says, "word is you got Weir to send Way back to earth."

"I _suggested_ it," Ryland says. "And only for a leave." He knows it's not going to be a popular notion, but Way's at the end of his tether, anyone with functioning eyeballs can see that. He also knows, though, that Atlantis is more important to Way than anything else, possibly even Iero, so he's not going to suggest anything permanent. Sending Way home for good would only do him harm.

"Whatever, man. Iero's gonna be out for blood when he hears." Suarez smiles at him; that evil smile where he knows Ryland's going to get his ass kicked and he's hoping for a front row seat. Sometimes, Ryland doesn't know why they're best friends.

"I like how you're reveling in my demise," Ryland says. "Very awesome of you."

"I know, right?" Suarez scoops up two bowls of Jello and slides them onto Ryland's tray. "Get extra meatloaf, will you? I'll scope out a table."

*

Bob is not freaking out. He's not exactly sure what he is doing, but he knows he's not freaking out at all. Really.

"I can hear you thinking," Joe says. "It's freaking me out." He's on his back on Bob's bed. It's pitch black in the room, and Bob can only see a small gleam of Joe's eyes.

Bob's got a hand curled around Joe's bicep, right above his cast, and he doesn't know how to say _I thought I'd lost you_ without coming across as a total girl. It's maybe fucking him up inside, twisting his guts.

His grip tightens, and Joe says, "Hey, hey, careful," but Bob doesn't let up, just swallows hard and takes in a noisy breath.

"You're a shit," Bob says thickly, and it's not exactly what Bob wanted to say, but he'll make it work.

Joe freezes. "Oh." He tries to squirm away from him, but Bob knows Joe hasn't been sleeping right, not when he's away from Bob.

"You're a shit," Bob says, "and if you ever pull something like that again, I'll" He chokes on his words, like they're all backed up in his dry throat, and Joe's hand comes up to pat blindly at his face in the darkness.

His palm catches Bob's jaw and Joe says, "Bob, hey," and twists towards him, tucking his face into Bob's neck, and Bob can feel the way Joe's fingers shake against his skin. "Nice that you care, dude," Joe says, words muffled.

"I don't," Bob says. He clears his throat. "Justinconvenient, having to save your ass all the time." He sneaks an arm over Joe's side, forced casualness, and he very carefully does not pull Joe closer.

*

When Frank stumbles into his quarters, half-asleep, Tito still fucking missing, he looks up and freezes, every single muscle in his body going rigid. "Holy shit," he says, because that. That right there, in front of Gerard, is Mikey Way. Younger than he'd been in that alternate universe, thinner, but definitely Mikey fucking Way.

"What?" Gerard says, blinking over at him with tired, bleary eyes. There are circles the size of fucking planets under them, making his cheeks look puffy.

Frank waves a hand around. "That. Fucking _that_, Gee, what the hell?"

Gerard's eyes widen and he glances from Frank to Mikey to Frank again. "You canyou can see him?"

"_Duh_. Oh my god, this is whatyou thought you've been _hallucinating_," Frank practically yells, now with both arms waving around. "And Crawford has an imaginary friend, and the fucking Jonas brotherseveryone's pretty sure they've fried their brains, but apparently." He clicks his mouth shut and fists his hands in his hair, what the fuck. His life is insane. And then he remembers that Gerard's on the fucking edge, and his dead brother's _standing there_, watching them, and he has no idea what the fuck is going on.

He takes a deep breath.

Gerard bites his lower lip. "Frank," he says, and it comes out broken.

Frank digs his palms into his eye sockets and sighs. "Yeah?"

"I really want a cigarette."

Frank laughs, startled and strained. "Too bad, we quit." When he lowers his hands, blinks open his eyes again, Mikey's gone. "So this can't be good," he says, in a much, much calmer tone.

Gerard's grin is kind of manic, like it isn't a grin at all, just a baring of clenched-together teeth. "Good thing is I'm not crazy yet, though."

"Gee, Gerard, what." Frank shakes his head. "Did you tell"

"Blackinton wants me to go back to earth for a while," Gerard says, and Frank sucks in a breath. That'll happen over Frank's cold, dead body - which, considering the circumstances, Frank isn't actually going to say out loud.

Instead, he just lets that comment slide and says, "Okay. Okay, there has to be a. A fucking _explanation_ for this, right?"

Gerard shrugs, set of his shoulders tight.

Frank has no idea what to fucking do here, but it's like. It's like, okay, they've all heard of Daniel Jackson, right, and Frank can't help but _think_. It's not like it's totally out there, as far as things go here.

"Okay, so." Frank sidles closer to Gerard. He wants to collapse next to him on the bed, wants to grab his hand and hold on tight, but he's not sure what that'll do to Gerard just yet, and he needs to say thisthis niggling little idea, that has the potential to be really fucking cool. "I'm just throwing this out there, buthave you thought about Ascension?"

Gerard goes white, then red. A blotchy red, heating up his collarbone, throat, cheeks in awkward patches. He looks like he wants to cry, and Frank regrets even fucking saying anything, even though he's pretty sure it needed to be said.

Gerard shakes his head vehemently. "He died. Mikey died, I _saw_ it. There was no glowy light or whatever. We fucking buried him." He thrusts his hands in his hair. "Frank, I. Whatever this is," Gerard says, "it's not Mikey."

*

"So what's the emergency?" Joe asks as the door to Iero's quarters slides open.

Iero grabs his arm and jerks him inside, and Joe immediately sobers when he sees Gerard.

"Fuck, Gerard, you look like shit." Joe knows he's been a mess for days himself, but Gerard looks _wrecked_.

Gerard gives him a weak smile. "Hi, Joe."

Iero points to the bedside table. "Is that weird?" he asks.

Joe furrows his brows. "It's a flower." He's never thought of flowers as _weird_ before, but now that he really looks at it. He steps closer and says, "Oh, hey, is that from thatis that from the awesome greenhouse on PX2-430? Mine died, like, the next _day_, what the hell?" Joe reaches out, feels the soft blue petals. It hasn't lost a single one, stem still freshly rigid.

"So that's not normal, right?" Iero says. He's bouncing back and forth on his feet, arms crossed and hands tucked under his armpits.

"Not really."

"Even if I was, like, taking awesome care of it?" Gerard says, palms out and looking nervously hopeful.

"Not unless you're magic, dude. It's not even wilted." Joe narrows his eyes and hunches down in front of the table to get a better look. The center's a creamy yellow, it's still got freaking _pollen_ on the stamen, and there's "Huh."

Joe pulls his little-used glasses out of the inside pocket of his jacket and slips them on, blinking as the smudge of black in the center of the flower focuses into something less black than brown; something more of a, a tiny _beetle_ than a smudge.

"What?" Iero says, hovering over his shoulder.

"More your expertise than mine," Joe says. He presses a petal gently back and gestures towards the little bug. "Think maybe this is your culprit right here."

*

"So this is disturbingly like Horton Hears a Who," Pete says.

Patrick gives him a look.

"Oh, what, like you weren't thinking that, too."

"It's just a bug," Patrick says.

Pete cocks his ear towards the flower. "It's humming."

"It's _buzzing_," Patrick says.

Pete frowns. "It's humming Master of Puppets."

Patrick opens his mouth, closes it again, leans forward with skeptical eyes, then says, kind of incredulously, "It's humming Master of Puppets."

"Told you," Pete says with a smug grin. Pete knows what's what. Pete is totally awesome, thank you very much.

"Why are you here?" Iero says, not looking up from where he's scrolling through the Ancient database.

Pete shrugs and Patrick sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose, which just makes Pete nudge his shoulder and waggle his eyebrows at him. Pete's just nosy, and Gerard's been miserable.

Other than the weird Metallica humming Who, though, nothing much is going on in Iero's labs. It's kind of boring. Osment, the terminally cheery entomologist, had spent ten minutes blabbering on about shells and legs and body mass or something before she'd been driven away by Pete's blank stare of indifference - and that had obviously been a mistake, because even Osment's enthusiasm for bugs was mildly more entertaining than watching Iero hit the spacebar on his keyboard every few seconds.

Iero arches an eyebrow at them. "Are you seeing Gerard's brother as a creepy apparition?"

"I wish," Pete says.

"Pete," Patrick says.

Pete says, "Like you _don't_," and Patrick shakes his head.

"I really don't, Pete," he says. "I'm completely fine with not seeing Gerard's brother as a creepy apparition."

Which is, of course, the moment when the little humming beetle up and disappears.

*

Gerard maybe shrieks like a girl and jerks his legs out of the water when something slick tickles the bottom of his foot. He looks down into the murky pool, though, and sees the tip of a red tentacle waving back and forth, and he lets out a slow breath. Tito. Frank's gonna be stoked to see him back.

Two of Tito's limbs snake out of the water, touch Gerard's knee, and then sink back down again.

Gerard should probably radio Frank. He definitely should radio Frank, but he doesn't reach for his comm. link. Instead, he shifts so he's on his stomach by the pool, soaking the front of his shirt and pants, and props his head up on folded hands, peeking over the edge and down into the water.

When Tito isn't at the surface, you can hardly see him at all. Just a dark, undulating mass that could easily be mistaken for kelp, or even just the absence of light against agitated water.

He watches Tito sink down and creep back up again, over and over, like it's a game to him. It's soothing, and Gerard's eyes are half-slit when a shadow falls over him.

"Hi," Ray says, settling down next to Gerard on the floor.

Gerard bites his lip and nods, shifting so he's sitting up again.

Gerard has known Ray longer than anyone else on Atlantis. They'd actually grown up together, even though they hadn't really been friends - Ray can be, if possible, even more spacey than Gerard - but they'd hang out occasionally, read comic books, listened to music. Most of that was due to Mikey. Most of it, Gerard doesn't really remember all that clearly. He's kind of embarrassed about that, so they don't talk a lot anymore. It's stupid, because Ray's the one person he can still talk to about Mikey.

Before - before he'd gotten his PhDs, before he'd left earth, before Frank, who barely brings up Mikey at all, and always looks like Gerard's about to break whenever he _does_ \- Gerard had gotten a lot of well-meaning it's-not-your-fault's, and Gerard would bob his head and agree and then quietly extricate himself from the conversations at the nearest opportunity.

It had never mattered to him what anyone else thought - maybe it was his fault, maybe it wasn't, but the people who counted, his mom, his dad, they didn't even have to say anything. It was in their hard, grief-leaden eyes and pinched mouths. It was in the way they couldn't keep eye contact with him for more than a few seconds, gazes sliding over his shoulder or down onto a tabletop, into a clutched cup of coffee. The way they wouldn't call, even after Gerard got clean.

Ray has never once told him that it wasn't his fault, but he always looks at him with clear eyes and a warm smile.

Before he'd left Jersey for college - and later OCS and TBS and whatever other hell it takes to become an officer in the Marines - it still kind of boggles Gerard's mind that sweet, affable Ray's a _major_ \- he'd sat next to Gerard on his bed and knocked their shoulders together and said, "I've always wanted to do something great, you know," like they hadn't just watched Mikey's coffin get lowered into the ground.

Gerard, barely sober and hating it, had crumpled his pack of cigarettes in his hands and said, "Yeah."

Ray had smiled at him, like they were on to something, like wherever they went from that moment _would_ be great.

Gerard thinks maybe Ray's the reason he ended up at college at all, even if he was long gone by that point.

Ray takes his shoes and socks off, rolls up his pant legs and slips his feet into the water.

"Careful," Gerard says, "Tito's back."

"Cool," Ray says, and splashes a little.

Ray makes him feel almost normal, not so much like he's going to twitch out of his skin, which is nice.

So an alien bug is manifesting itself as his younger brother, for reasons that Gerard can't fathom - pulled from his subconscious, maybe? Gerard _does_ tend to think about Mikey a lot, he can't really help it. He's not going to let that ruin what he has here, though; he's not going to break down or anything. He's going to be fine, and they're not going to send him back to earth.

"I'm going to be okay," he says. He's not sure if he actually meant to say that out loud, and he bites his lip, heat on the tops of his cheeks, but Ray just nods, hair flopping over his forehead.

"Sure, man." Ray grips Gerard's shoulder. "Better than okay."

For the first time in days, Gerard feels lighter, like there isn't a stone in his stomach, and whatever's squeezing his heart let's go, just a little bit.

*

"I don't get why no one believes us," Joe says.

"Because they're douches," Nick says. He twirls his spaghetti onto his fork and grins and Kevin thinks he's been spending too much time with the botanists.

"I mean," Joe goes on, "it's our _job_. It's why we're on Atlantis in the first place."

"You sure?" Carden says. Under the table he presses the entire length of his leg against Kevin's, and Kevin fights off a giddy smile, because he's stupid-in-love, but he's not a total loser. He thinks.

"Huh?" Joe says.

"You _sure_?" Carden asks again. "You did blow up the SGC's 'jumper."

Kevin stifles a groan, because here they go.

"It was a freak accident," Joe says, waving his arms around. "They can't blame me for that."

"You used a one instead of a seven," Nick says.

"Your sevens look like ones!" Joe's face is red, and Carden sneaks his hand onto Kevin's thigh and Kevin swallows hard.

Carden leans a little closer and whispers, "Want to get out of here, Skip?"

Kevin nods. Desperately. He desperately wants to get out of there, before they start pulling each other's hair and throwing Jell-O. Kevin knows this is a concession to him, because Carden loves watching when Joe and Nick, "lose their shit." He'd told him that last time it happened, in one of the lower labs, fingers curling into Kevin's hips, a warm, solid weight along his back, cool laughter in his voice.

Kevin's hoping Carden'll get them off-world and accidentally married somehow, because this keeping his virginity thing is turning out to be really hard. He blames Carden and his hot, careless touches and knowing smirks.

"Kev thinks I'm right, right Kev?" Joe's narrow gaze pins him down, freezes him halfway to his feet, bent slightly, knuckles braced against the table.

"Uh. Sure?" He flicks a sideways look towards Carden.

Carden rolls his eyes and mouths a totally uncalled for, sarcastic, _good one. _

Nick snorts, which means he totally doesn't believe him, which means that Joe'll get even _more_ pissy, and Kevin wants to beat a hasty retreat, but he's kind of trapped now. Trapped by Joe's increasingly violent arm-flails and Nick's grip on his belt loop. Kevin doesn't know how that happened. He totally has to work on his reflexes or something.

Luckily, Dr. McKay shouts across the mess, "You! McFly!" and Nick startles enough that Kevin can break free, letting Carden drag him out of the room by a hand fisted in the front of his jacket.

"It's like watching three inbred puppies slobber all over each other," Carden says.

Kevin twists out of Carden's grip and pushes him towards the nearest transporter. "Smart ass."

"Oh, hey now." Carden looks at him with raised eyebrows. "Language, Skip."

Kevin sticks his tongue out, then ducks and laughs when Carden makes a grab for him, pushing him up against the wall of the transporter.

"Hang on, hold it," someone yells, and then Sergeant Crawford's sliding in, panting a little, heavy, wet curls soaking through the collar of his jacket, with a skinny guy in civvies trailing almost aimlessly behind.

Kevin stares at him and the guy - _kid_, really, he looks maybe sixteen, tops - kind of fades in and out, and Kevin thinks _oh_.

Carden nudges his arm. "You're seeing this, right?"

Crawford grins and leans past them, pressing two fingers onto the lower biology lab quadrant. "I," he says confidently, "am totally not crazy."

"Not unless you're taking all of us with you," Carden says. "Huh."

*

Ian glances over his shoulder to make sure the kid's following him, then says, "It's not like I don't appreciate it, but normally I'm good with taking showers all by my lonesome." He's not saying he would've minded some company, preferably in the form of Cosgrove or Asher, but he's been showering just fine without accidentally killing himself for nearly twenty-nine years, thanks.

So he'd been naked and wet - kind of a thing, it seems, with this dude - and _allegedly_ in risk of falling to his death by slipping on the slick tile, and the guy pops out of nowhere and grabs hold of his arm as he steps out of the stall.

"I'm helping," he says, and Ian shakes his head.

"No, dude, no. What you're doing is freaking everyone out," he says. He feels like he should really try to get that point across to him.

Right _now_, though, they're going back to Iero, so they can figure out what the hell to do with him.

There's yelling echoing in the corridors when they get to the lower biology labs, and then there's a yelp and Wentz is literally tossed out the doors of lab five, skidding across the hall to slam into the wall.

"_Hey_," Wentz says. "Uncalled for, Iero, you could've broken me and shit."

Patrick steps into the doorway, a long-suffering look on his face, but his eyes are bright and amused. "You pretty much deserved it, Pete," he says.

Wentz says, "Traitor," and then glances over and spots Ian and says, "Oh, wow, Mikeyway!" and bounds to his feet like a spastic monkey or something.

Ian takes a giant step backwards.

Wentz holds out his hand for the kid to shake, but he just stares at him blankly, so Wentz drops his arm and leans in closer, eyes narrowed, studying him.

"You're a handsome dude. You chose well, creepy apparition of Gee's brother," Wentz finally says, nodding, like he's completely serious.

Ian really fucking loves living on Atlantis. There's never a dull second, honestly. He slides his hands into his pockets and says, "Figured Iero might want him back."

Iero pokes his head out next to Patrick. He points at them and says, "So I have no idea. I think we're just going to take him home."

*

**[vi]**

Osment looks like she might actually keel over in pure joy when Gerard activates the chamber.

It's a cool spring there, simulating early morning, Joe can practically see the flowers open up to the first rays of the sun. Ten minutes pass before he can breath properly, watching a crocus-like bloom, bright royal purple, shift in the breeze to reveal a yellow center. And nestled in the yellow is a black and red_fly_ of some sort.

Osment is making cooing noises, holding a leaf up with two big brown caterpillars, mottled with spots of blue.

There's something too small to see buzzing around Joe's head. He doesn't know why he didn't realize there were so many freaking bugs here last time.

"We have to catalog absolutely everything," Osment says, carefully releasing the leaf and then shrugging out of her pack.

"Is anyone else worried that these bugs are sentient beings who can maybe read our minds?" Nick says, nose scrunched up as he shifts his gaze around the room.

As the bugs getmore curious, is the only way Joe can think of to describe it, they stretch and shimmer and fade into shadows, deep velvet black, mimicking human shapes.

"And shape-shift," Pete says. "Don't forget how super-cool that is."

Asher stares at Pete. "How do you have a PhD?"

Pete holds up a couple fingers, grinning. "Two of 'em."

Joe watches as Gerard kneels down in a particularly thick patch of grass, a riot of blue and pink and yellow flowers winking in and out of the tall, pale-green blades.

No one had really wanted Gerard on the mission - he looked better, but he still looked _awful_ \- but he'd shown up at the 'gate, cradling the blue flower in between careful palms.

"He just really likes me," Gerard had said, shrugging. "Like, he wanted to be helpful. I should make sure he gets home safe."

Joe certainly wasn't going to argue him out of coming. It's not like he'd wanted to be all alone with Osment, Pete and Team Kennerty, anyway.

Joe takes a deep breath, sucking in all the fresh air he can, and closes his eyes. He's okay, he thinks, now that he knows that whatever he'd felt before - that eerie calm about his potentially messy, painful death - was the result of some sort of freaky alien mind-meld. It's still pretty fucked up, but he's cool with it. Mostly. It helps that Bob's stopped being an emotional mandroid or whatever and has given in to his cuddling demands. Cuddling with Bob is kind of a cure-all - which he plans on telling Bob often, since Bob goes bright red and, like, holds him down and tries to make him take it back, only more fun stuff happens instead. Bob is never getting away from Joe ever again.

There's a breathy laugh, and Joe looks up to see"C.C. DeVille?" Joe says incredulously, with Gerard grinning wide enough to split his face.

"I just thought, you know," Gerard waves a hand, "with the Mikey thing. If I pictured someone else hard enough, would itand, oh my god, this is _awesome_."

"You went from your brother to the lead guitarist for _Poison_?" Joe asks. Awesome isn't the exact term Joe would use for this. It's not likethe blank staring is just off-putting, actually. "Can you make it go away?"

Osment is practically yipping from her corner of the room, and then there's a slightly less than stiff breeze and Osment says, "Butterflies, look, look," and the room explodes in a colorful mess of tiny, paper-thin wings, rising up from the long grass. The figure of C.C. splits apart like so much smoke and takes off, too.

*

Mike is feeling pretty awesome about this whole mission. He has Wentz and Way and Joe and Osment and he's totally not going to lose any of them.

He's still amazed Bryar let him take Joe; he's sure this is his chance to prove himself as a competent team leader. Asher's even been looking him in the eyes when he talks to her lately; it's sort of awesome for his self-esteem.

Granted, Bryar had threatened painful, messy death - not in so many words, but in the way he'd gripped his wrist and glared like, if he chose to glare hard and long enough, laser beams would eventually shoot out of his eyes and burn tiny deadly holes all over Mike's face. Or something.

Mike nods to their hosts and lets Travis charm them into indulgent smiles. He has no idea how Travis does that all the time, but it definitely comes in handy.

Mike has to admit, too, that the whole greenhouse thing is cool. When Travis and Mike step inside, Asher and Nick are standing sentinel on either side of the door, Osment'sOsment's _crying_, Mike thinks, and Joe's lying sprawled out under a giant, shady tree, good arm bent and pillowing his head, a blade of grass clenched between his teeth.

"I can change the _seasons_," Way says excitedly, and an elder, Grendal, steps forward with an amused grin.

"We would rather you did not," he says, and a little powder blue butterfly lands on his shoulder, wings fluttering. He brushes at it lightly and chuckles as it hovers over the tips of his fingers, riding them for a second before flying off towards the sky.

And then a tiny, tiny bug flits up to Gerard and settles directly on the tip of his nose. Osment goes, "Aww, that's just the cutest thing."

"Are you sure you do not wish to keep him," Grendal says to Gerard, and that's a first. Usually they're getting chewed out for taking something without asking, or almost getting sacrificed for "_gaining the favor of the gods, you are truly blessed; now we must cut out your heart so it beats forever in tune with the natural world_."

"Uh." Gerard grimaces.

Osment steps forward, a giant notebook full of doodles and diagrams clutched to her chest, and says, "Oh, we don'twe don't want to disrupt any more than we already have." Her smile is _huge_. "I'm sure he'll be much happier here than buzzing around our city."

Grendal inclines his head. "As you wish. Although they do not choose someone to follow lightly."

"Of course not," Osment says, still smiling. All her enthusiastic cheer is unnerving.

"Are we sure she's not a zombie?" Mike whispers to Nick out of the side of his mouth.

"She's, like, Rainbow Brite," Nick says.

Asher punches Nick in the arm. "If anyone's galloping over a sparkly rainbow on a unicorn here, it's you, champ."

Nick points a finger at her. "Inappropriate."

Asher blinks.

"Dick-licking hag," Nick adds.

"Shut _up_," Mike says. Jesus Christ. They're lucky the elders still seem to be infatuated with Travis and Travis's hair and long torso, who smoothly cuts in front of Osment - she's just standing there, _grinning_, and Mike's really afraid that she's scrolling through a mental list of recipes for brains, it totally wouldn't surprise him - and starts subtly steering the group of villagers from the room.

They give him half-bows - that Travis jauntily returns - and slip out the door one by one.

*

Gerard cups the tiny beetle in a hand and bends close and whispers, "So, um. I know you probably want to come back with us, but you'll be happier here."

There's what looks like an extra-large jack-in-the-pulpit by his feet, and he hunches down, coaxes the beetle onto the tip of a leaf, grinning at him fondly. It's like, once he realized it honestly, true-blue, cross-your-heart wasn't Mikey, that it just plucked Mikey from Gerard's mindlike he felt Gerard's _affection_, maybe, and wanted to be close to him, well. It's just really sort of sweet. He thinks maybe he'll miss him.

Not that Gerard wants him hanging around. It's hard enough living with Mikey's memory, and not, like, his _specter_. It's going to be awesome, getting a full night's sleep. God, he can't wait to go home and nap. Maybe he can talk Frank into join him, magic sleepy time under the unicorn blanket. That sounds super _fantastic_.

"Bye, little guy," Gerard says, carefully letting the edge of the leaf go and getting to his feet, rubbing the flat of his hands on his thighs.

Joe claps his back. "He'll be good," he says.

"It's weird that I'll miss him a little, right?" Gerard asks. He bites at his thumbnail. It's totally weird, Gerard knows it.

Joe shakes his head and says, "No way, dude," because Joe's an awesome, supportive friend - Gerard doesn't get why Dr. McKay is always going on about how evil and vindictive all the botanists are.

Gerard grins around his thumb and shrugs.

And then Kennerty shouts, "Oh _hell_, where's Pete?"

Gerard glances at Joe, then back towards Kennerty again.

"Marshall said there were ruins just outside the village," Asher says, cocking a hip.

Kennerty groans, slaps a hand onto his forehead, pulling it down to drag over his entire face and down over his throat, like he's thinking about maybe trying to strangle himself. "Great."

"Crumbly ruins," Wheeler says, "with, like, holes and shit."

"Fucking _perfect_."


End file.
